Celestial City - Chamomile
Modern Times Beer

 

 

these guys make a ton of variants of a lot of their beers, so i am not sure if celestial city is always foeder aged or if this particular version of it special because it has received that treatment. i do not believe the base beer has chamomile in it, so this is a special edition in any event, sold to me on their menu in portland as foeder aged celestial city. this is an only lightly woody, delicately funky, herbal springy saison that is absolutely delicious, my favorite beer we had in here, although truthfully i liked them all. there is a nice pale yellow color to this, a tall airy white belgian looking head from the tap, and a ton of rushing carbonation to it. smells lightly tangy, citric and lemony, but with some subtle bretty funk in here too, green tea notes from the chamomile, cut and dried flowers too, maybe a flash of honey under the wheat. the flavor is all of this, alfalfa and hay, dry clean wheat malt, kumquat and meyer lemon, green grape and white wine, under ripe pear, and gentle pepper character too. this is awesome beer, highly refined, patient, and with a really delicious fermentation profile that sets it off. the foeder treatment obviously does a lot for this, if the regular celestial city is done this way, i could see it seeming like it was missing something. the chamomile too seems integral to the whole here, its present the whole time and works in concert with the funk to define this one, if its not in the base beer normally, it might seem missing as well. really tasty stuff here, lively and quenching to drink, complex in a mellow way, just a gorgeous brew. these guys are slaying right now, they do everything well! i need to try some other variants of this one...